4.5 Review

Here is a brief summary of the various functions discussed in this chapter.

describe-function

describe-variable

Print the documentation for a function or variable.
Conventionally bound to C-h f and C-h v.

find-tag

Find the file containing the source for a function or variable and
switch buffers to it, positioning point at the beginning of the item.
Conventionally bound to M-. (that’s a period following the
META key).

save-excursion

Save the location of point and mark and restore their values after the
arguments to save-excursion have been evaluated. Also, remember
the current buffer and return to it.

push-mark

Set mark at a location and record the value of the previous mark on the
mark ring. The mark is a location in the buffer that will keep its
relative position even if text is added to or removed from the buffer.

goto-char

Set point to the location specified by the value of the argument, which
can be a number, a marker, or an expression that returns the number of
a position, such as (point-min).

insert-buffer-substring

Copy a region of text from a buffer that is passed to the function as
an argument and insert the region into the current buffer.

mark-whole-buffer

Mark the whole buffer as a region. Normally bound to C-x h.

set-buffer

Switch the attention of Emacs to another buffer, but do not change the
window being displayed. Used when the program rather than a human is
to work on a different buffer.

get-buffer-create

get-buffer

Find a named buffer or create one if a buffer of that name does not
exist. The get-buffer function returns nil if the named
buffer does not exist.